Re: [xml-dev] Does the XML syntax have an underlying data model?

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

Rick Jelliffe:

> XML was not a planting exercise, but a pruning exercise.

Michael Key:

> XML (like so many technologies) was successful because it was done 
quickly, and that taking longer to do it better would probably have 
ensured an early death.

Private interests may find it politically useful to characterize 
demodularization as "pruning", but in engineering terms, it's still 
demodularization, and it's not necessarily in the public interest.

A more basic question is: Would it be good if information interchange 
standards were designed publicly, for world economic performance?  Or 
not?  Is the question academic?  Or is it simply practical?  It depends 
one's perspective.  (One's perspective being subject to change!)

For example, consider a topic that is perhaps less fraught than XML 
Namespaces, at least within the XML community.  Was the 7-layer OSI 
model in the public interest, or not?  Would we be better off today if 
private interests had adopted it, or had been required to adopt it?  If, 
for whatever reasons, private interests had adopted OSI, would we now 
enjoy more options in world communications, and a larger arena more 
suitable both for innovation *and* regulation?

More generally (and with thanks to Eric Raymond), does the bazaar really 
serve its own interests by neglecting its cathedral? Personally, I think 
not.

Steve Newcomb